Recalibrating Juvenile Detention: Lessons Learned from the Court-Ordered Reform of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center

Recalibrating Juvenile Detention chronicles the lessons learned from the 2007 to 2015 landmark US District Court-ordered reform of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) in Illinois, following years of litigation by the ACLU about egregious and unconstitutional conditions of confinement. In addition to explaining the implications of the Court’s actions, the book includes an analysis of a major evaluation research report by the University of Chicago Crime Lab and explains for scholars, practitioners, administrators, policymakers, and advocates how and why this particular reform of conditions achieved successful outcomes when others failed.

Maintaining that the Chicago Crime Lab findings are the "gold standard" evidence-based research (EBR) in pretrial detention, Roush holds that the observed "firsts" for juvenile detention may perhaps have the power to transform all custody practices. He shows that the findings validate a new model of institutional reform based on cognitive-behavioral programming (CBT), reveal statistically significant reductions in in-custody violence and recidivism, and demonstrate that at least one variation of short-term secure custody can influence positively certain life outcomes for Chicago’s highest-risk and most disadvantaged youth. With the Quarterly Journal of Economics imprimatur and endorsement by the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, the book is a reverse engineering of these once-in-a-lifetime events (recidivism reduction and EBR in pretrial detention) that explains the important and transformative implications for the future of juvenile justice practice. The book is essential reading for graduate students in juvenile justice, criminology, and corrections, as well as practitioners, judges, and policymakers.

David Roush, PhD (Michigan State University), a specialist in juvenile justice with consulting experiences with over 260 institutions in 49 states, is co-founder of Juvenile Justice Associates, LLC. As a US Department of Justice (USDOJ) protection from harm specialist, he was a compliance monitor in multiple jurisdictions. He developed award-winning programs in juvenile detention and corrections (two from USDOJ and three from the National Association of Counties) and was one of the first to use cognitive behavior interventions with serious, violent and mentally ill juveniles in 1974. He taught courses and conducted research on conditions of confinement and coordinated national training and technical assistance services while at Michigan State University. He has held leadership positions in several professional juvenile justice and correctional health care associations, receiving distinguished service awards from state and national detention associations, the National Juvenile Court Services Association and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. He lives in Michigan with his wife Nancy. They have two children and five grandchildren.